So there's another kind of brush-like thing that you can do in Illustrator,…that isn't a brush.…So we have already looked at the Blob brush that isn't a brush. This is even…less of a brush because it doesn't even have its own icon in the tools panel.…Even though it probably looks like I've applied brushes to this, I have not.…What I've done is chosen Stroke Profiles and this is the mini version of it, …but let's look at it in a Stroke panel first.…

If this is what you see when you open the Stroke panel, you want to…enlarge the Stroke panel.…Right here, at the bottom you will see Profile.…So if I return this to Uniform, you will see indeed it is just a plain old stroke.…This is a thick stroke and you can apply profiles to any old stroke, …but it will be more visible if you apply it to a thicker one.…So you can go ahead and experiment with what happens. It's pretty easy and…pretty powerful to develop objects that have some character, some warmth that…are not quite your classic, hard-edged vectors that they have some nuance to them.…

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Author

Released

2/15/2013

In this course, artist Sharon Steuer shows how to paint with the various natural media brushes inside Adobe Illustrator, one of the most overlooked sets of artistic tools in the entire Creative Cloud or Adobe Creative Suite. Along the way, she offers suggestions on how to customize these brushes to help express your creativity. Discover how to configure your workspace, adjust tool options, and set up a tablet. Then investigate the multiple styles of brushes in Illustrator—from Calligraphic, Bristle, and naturalistic Art brushes to Blob brushes and stroke profiles. Sharon also shows how to combine brushes and effects with other Illustrator features to maximize your control when drawing, painting, and adding expressive strokes in Illustrator.

Topics include:

Drawing and tracing with Wacom and Cintiq tablets

Maximizing control without a tablet

Demystifying Paintbrush tool preferences

Integrating brushes with other tools such as Smooth and Pencil

Adding brushes to objects and text

Creating naturalistic strokes with the Art brush tools

Picking up, storing, and applying brushes

Duplicating and customizing brushes

Creating transparent washes and watercolor with Calligraphic brushes

Drawing and erasing with the Blob Brush tool

Adding stroke profiles to lines and brushes

Organizing complex images with layers

Ideas for how to combine Illustrator brushes with Photoshop, and even with traditional media

Skill Level Intermediate

3h 2m

Duration

282,354

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Q: How do I import one of Sharon's workspaces into Illustrator?

A: Place Sharon's workspace file within the folder structure below, understanding that where it says YourHomeFolder you instead choose the folder that contains your name (your Home folder):